etc

Given that was your intention, the response was conspicuously devoid of suggestions. Looking back, it seems this thread has devolved primarily to numerous people expressing their frustrations that Evernote is missing this basic functionality (and won't even respond or acknowledge them) and you invalidating their requests. It's just not helpful and it comes across like a personal agenda. There are reasons why the current crop of alternative solutions just aren't good enough, and I've expressed just a couple from my own perspective. Regardless, to the end that we're trying to be helpful and constructive, for those that haven't had a chance to read through the entire thread, there is an excellent post by @JMichaelTX (please like the post to thank him for his contribution) detailing some alternative ways to handle notes that might be good enough for some, if not many. I think we've spent enough time on this. Thank you for your assistance.

Your reply was personal - there was literally no reason for you to respond except to be dismissive of the request. I clarified the legitimacy of the request and why the proposals weren't genuine solutions, but merely stopgaps. Of course we can switch. That option is always there. However, people make requests in hopes that the product will become better suited to their needs. For many individuals, myself included, this tarnishes what is otherwise an extremely competent and useful product. What's the point in responding and rationalizing why it does in fact fit within *your* workflow except to be contrarian? This is an attempt to keep the request board constructive with less ancillary noise. For the reasons stated above, the alternatives don't actually achieve what I want, and insisting they do by fiat doesn't make it so. I'm hopeful that Evernote will eventually add this capability, because as repositories grow, scoping becomes critical to productive usage - and reflective of reality, there is a life cycle of pertinence of data and information.

Yes, I'm aware of workarounds that can be used in lieu of this basic functionality, just as a sword can be used instead of a butter knife, but that doesn't mean it's an elegant solution. Just because the requirements or requests don't fit your specific use case doesn't mean they are illegitimate. It's this kind of denialism that frustrates other users, because you explicitly delegitimize their methods, requests and perspectives. Quite frankly, I couldn't care less about your specific use case, and find these types of posts to be unnecessarily antagonistic. Evernote doesn't offer various ways to "archive" the notes - it offers features that could be utilized as a half measure to somewhat achieve the same results. They all add friction to what should be a basic function. For example, by adding all the notes to an archive notebook, we lose the ability to structure notebooks within a logic stack. All of a sudden all my notebooks are placed without a large, monolithic archive stack. I just don't want my view to be cluttered by notes that are no longer of use to me. For example, I have lots of notes from when I was in law school, and I've placed all of those notebooks into a law school stack. If I want to then "hide" this stack, I have to effectively remove them all from the law school stack and place them into an archive one. I don't want a giant "archive" pile. I just want to hide what's there. Why is this an unreasonable request? Your suggestion to use proscriptive search syntax is well received, but again, adds friction to what should be very basic functionality. Every time I want to avoid searching through archived notes, which amount to just noise, I have to explicitly remember and go through the steps of excluding a certain tag. It adds unnecessary friction to what is supposed to be an efficient and simple task (searching). Yes, you're right - solutions do exist in some way, shape or form, however this truly is basic functionality that obviously frustrates a number of users. It's enough for me to never rely on Evernote as my primary service, as competent as it is, and given the fact that its often cited as an example of a service that at one point had so much potential, but is in somewhat existential crisis, perhaps there might be some wisdom in stopping, taking a breath, and fully considering what constructive feedback others might have before you reflexively dismiss their suggestions and requests. If not, by all means - continue to be "right."

There's always the fanboi that gets so defensive about things, they end up inadvertently making you despise the company they're trying to defend. This is a very basic and legitimate request. I'm genuinely surprised it isn't a core part of the application. It is this kind of glaring omission that took a once promising service, and driven it towards obscurity and irrelevance. As a pro subscriber, that's sad.